Access in the Shadow of Ableism: An Autoethnography of a Blind Student's Higher Education Experience in China
Xinru Tang, Weijun Zhang · 2026 · Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26) · doi:10.1145/3772318.3790464
Summary
This paper is a collaborative autoethnography written by Xinru Tang and Weijun Zhang, in which Zhang - a blind graduate student who completed his undergraduate work in a specialized program for blind and low-vision (BLV) students at "University A" in China and later became the first blind student ever admitted to a mainstream foreign-languages university ("University B") - reflects on his higher-education journey and the access tensions he encountered at both institutions. The study is positioned as a counterweight to the dominant WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) framing of most accessibility research and to the technology-first orientation of much HCI work on disability. Methodologically, Zhang produced 20 vignettes about admissions, course materials, exams, assistive technology use, and dormitory and dining-hall life, and the two authors jointly applied reflexive thematic analysis across these narratives, revisiting the data to probe what access was expected to deliver, what benefits it provided, and what shaped the process of seeking it. The paper is grounded in critical disability studies, crip technoscience, and prior HCI autoethnographies of disability, and situates Zhang's experience inside China's specific legal and cultural context: a system that still emphasizes special education and vocational tracks (notably remedial massage and acupuncture for blind students), has only recently ratified and partially implemented the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and lacks a clear legal definition of discrimination or reasonable accommodation outside national examinations. Roughly 200 BLV students enter undergraduate programs in China each year, and fewer than eleven requested Braille gaokao papers in 2021, giving this case wider structural significance.
Key findings
Zhang's account surfaces three intertwined tensions. First, at University A the specialized program offered dense access - shared dorms with classmates who could relay inaccessible information, no reliance on PowerPoint, and a majority-BLV peer group - but also marginalized students within broader society by restricting majors to acupuncture, remedial massage, and music, by using an outdated free screen reader, and by limiting Braille textbook availability. Second, at University B access was negotiated ad hoc, case by case, with no central disability services office: Zhang had to personally negotiate PowerPoint access with each instructor, was required to perform a "Sight Translation" task on the admission exam, used NVDA rather than his preferred screen reader because it was the only option the testing center supported, and faced instructors who refused to share slides citing copyright or suggested he leave a course. Third, both institutions were constrained by systemic issues: lack of established policies, pervasive ableist cultures, limited budgets for accessible tools, and the widespread assumption that accommodations primarily integrate disabled students into sighted norms rather than changing those norms. The authors conclude that even "successful" access can reproduce ableism by requiring conformity, and they reframe access as a contradictory, ongoing, exploratory practice rather than a checkbox solution. They offer five practical implications: understand access across diverse educational settings, build a case database of reasonable accommodations in China, raise awareness of special-versus-mainstream trade-offs, develop formal disability services and policies, and cultivate a disability advocacy network for information sharing and self-advocacy.
Relevance
This paper matters for three reasons. First, it is one of the very few in-depth accounts of higher education accessibility in China - a non-WEIRD context that accessibility practitioners, technology designers, and researchers typically under-serve. The specific barriers (gaokao versus specialized admissions exams, restricted majors, absence of reasonable-accommodation legal definitions, ad hoc negotiation across Chinese platforms like Tencent Meeting, Tencent Classroom, DingTalk, Xuexitong) are highly actionable for teams building products for or researching Chinese users. Second, the theoretical move - treating access as a contradictory construct shaped by ableist structures rather than a technical endpoint - is transferable well beyond China. It gives practitioners language to name the trade-offs that arise when "accommodations" demand conformity (e.g., using PowerPoint workflows, mainstream collaboration tools, or exam formats built around sighted norms) and invites a shift from solutionism toward long-term advocacy, policy, and community infrastructure. Third, the paper demonstrates autoethnography as a legitimate, rigorous accessibility research method that surfaces what interviews and usability tests cannot. Limitations include reliance on a single blind author's memory, focus on one country and one disability type, no intersectional analysis of gender or class, and no prescriptive design recommendations; but the paper is explicit that it seeks to provoke reflection rather than deliver a reusable fix.
Tags: blind and low vision · higher education · autoethnography · ableism · disability studies · china · non-weird · critical disability studies · screen readers
Standards referenced: CRPD